Between the World and the Yishuv: The Translation of Knut Hamsun's Markens grøde as a Zionist Sacred Text

Abstract:Hebrew literary culture in the early twentieth century relied as much on the translation of "great books" of world literature as it did on the production of original Hebrew works. Knut Hamsun's Norwegian novel Markens grøde, translated into Hebrew as Birkat ha-adamah by Nissan Touroff for Stybel Press in 1921, was one of many such books. However, partly because its themes resonate deeply with Labor Zionist ideology, Birkat ha-adamah held a special place in the Yishuv. Touroff's translation conveys the universality of Hamsun's Romantic ideas about proximity to nature and agricultural settlement, but also forges a particular link to Zionism: certain translation choices suggest that Touroff restores an absent biblical original through his Hebrew. In this essay, I argue that Touroff recalibrates the sacrality of Hamsun's novel to accommodate the spiritual and ideological needs of the Zionists in the Yishuv. Enhancing existing biblical intertexts to posit the novel as an alternative Zionist sacred text, his translation and its reception expose a fertile tension between universal ideals and specifically Zionist concerns. Translation of "great books" helped bring the world to Hebrew; the production of original Hebrew works helped bring Hebrew to the world. Birkat ha-adamah's productive grappling between the world and the Yishuv, though, reveals another dimension in this seemingly straightforward cultural economy.